Judicial Watch Joins with Allied Educational Foundation in Supporting Georgia’s Right to Clean Voter Rolls

Asks Circuit Court to Uphold Lower Court Ruling that Georgia’s Use of Voter Data in Procedure for Cleaning Voter Rolls Does Not Violate Law or Constitution

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it joined with the Allied Educational Foundation (AEF) in filing an amici curiae brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in support of Georgia’s efforts to ensure that its voter rolls are up to date.  The case is on appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia (Common Cause, et al., v. Brian Kemp, Georgia Secretary of State (No. 1:16-cv-00452)).

In ruling against plaintiff Common Cause, the district court held that Georgia’s use of voter data to initiate the address-confirmation procedure for cleaning voter rolls does not violate the plain language and congressional intent of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

Judicial Watch and AEF argue that Georgia’s voter-roll cleaning procedure does not violate the NVRA:

[Georgia’s procedure] is in perfect accord with the NVRA.  Voters are not removed for failing to vote, as Appellants maintain.  Rather, they are removed for failing to respond to a notice and then failing to engage in voting activity for two federal elections.  Appellants’ attempt to stretch the notion of causation beyond its natural bounds to refer equally to all prior causes in a chain of causes is not warranted by logic or by the law.

In a similar voter integrity lawsuit calling into question Ohio’s law to keep its voter rolls clean and up to date (Jon Husted, Ohio Secretary of State v. Philip Randolph Institute, et al. (No. 16-980)), which currently is under review by the U.S. Supreme Court, Judicial Watch filed an amicus curiae brief defending Ohio’s right to clean voter rolls.  Unlike the Georgia case, a lower court found Ohio’s law in violation of the NVRA.  Judicial Watch argues in its amicus brief to the Supreme Court that in preventing Ohio from cleaning its voter rolls, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit “inverted the plain meaning” of the federal voter list integrity law. Judicial Watch contends that Ohio should be permitted to continue its process of “sending of a statutory confirmation notice to any registrant that has not had any voting-related activity for two years.”

“The Obama Justice Department and its allies on the Left were fanatical in their efforts to undermine election integrity measures like the ones in Georgia and Ohio,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  “Dirty election rolls mean dirty elections.  The Eleventh Circuit should affirm the district court’s decision allowing Georgia to continue to ensure that dead people, those who have moved to other states and other ineligible names are removed from its voter registration lists.”

The Allied Educational Foundation is a charitable and educational foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life through education. In furtherance of that goal, the Foundation has engaged in a number of projects which include, but are not limited to, educational and health conferences domestically and abroad. AEF has frequently partnered with Judicial Watch to fight government and judicial corruption.

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